Odyssey of the Mind
by Veldeia
Summary: He woke up with no memory at all, in a small white room, in the company of a man called Jarvis, who told him that his name was Tony Stark... A somewhat different story. Tony/Jarvis, Tony/Pepper. Now with epilogue.
1. Alive

**Author's Note:** This is a story I've posted at my lj a while ago, but I figured I'd post it here, too, just in case someone's feeling adventurous enough to read it. It's not your usual Tony/Pepper stuff, it's definitely not fluffy, it's pretty serious, has possibly disturbing plot twists and also some Tony/Jarvis in it. And I'm also really proud of it.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

He woke up with no memory.

Sure, he remembered some things: he knew that this color that surrounded him, the color of the ceiling, the walls and the bedcovers, was called white. He knew that he was a man, and that the flesh-colored, five-fingered things half-hidden in white sleeves that rested on the bedcovers were his hands, although he couldn't feel them at all.

He knew none of the important stuff. He couldn't remember who he was, not even his name. He couldn't remember where he was, or how he had gotten here. He didn't know if he still remembered how to speak. When he tried to turn his head to get a better look at the surroundings, he learned that he could do it, but it felt strangely disjointed, as if it wasn't his neck at all that was moving.

Next to the wall to his right, on a plush white armchair, sat a man, the only thing in the room beside himself that wasn't completely white. The man's skin was pale enough to be almost white, but his close-cut hair was a golden blonde and his eyes the electric blue of a tropical sea. He was wearing black and white, an old-fashioned tailcoat suit, like some vintage British butler.

He opened his mouth to ask who the man was, or who he was himself, for that matter, but all that came out was an indistinct croak.

"Don't worry, sir, it might take a while before you can speak again. You have been through a lot," the man told him, speaking with a distinctly British accent. "My name is Jarvis. Can you remember yours?"

He tried his best, but his mind was blank. He shook his head.

"You're Tony Stark, although you like being called Iron Man," Jarvis said.

That was when it started coming back to him.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

_Iron Man was flying high in the sky, in a deceptively calm expanse of blue streaked with fluffy white clouds. The truth was, there was nothing calm about the situation, let alone fluffy. Tony was being pursued and shot at by an enemy with vastly greater firepower than his._

_He should've been more careful. He had known all along that this was a trap, but he had decided to go anyway, because that was what he did. He put his life on the line for the small chance of saving those of others. Because he was Iron Man, and he knew what he had to do._

_"Incoming missiles, sir," Jarvis reported, his artificial voice as cool as always. "Type unknown. Three of them, at six o'clock."_

_"Aren't we jamming them?"_

_"It isn't working, they must be shielded."_

_"Damn! That shouldn't be possible."_

_"I agree, sir, but it would appear that they don't."_

_"Evasive action!" Tony shouted, and veered tightly up and to the right, using everything his bootjets would give._

_"Still closing in. Estimated time of impact: 30 seconds."_

_"Isn't there anything useful you can say? Flares!" he ordered, and the bright missile-distracting bolts shot out from his suit._

_"No effect. They're obviously not heat-seeking," Jarvis reported. "Impact in fifteen!"_

_Tony thought he could hear the rumble of the missiles behind him despite the air rushing past him at a dizzying speed. "Aim my bootjets at them," he yelled, and felt the legs of the suit move automatically. There was a loud explosion behind him, and the pressure wave sent him tumbling aimlessly through the air._

_"Sir, there's still one left!" Jarvis said, and it almost sounded to Tony as if he was distressed. "Impact in five - four - three..."_

_Tony couldn't think of anything to do, he was spinning wildly, on the verge of blacking out, the g-forces hitting his body so great that without his suit, he'd probably be dead already._

_Then, it struck._

_"Tony!" someone shouted, and it sounded a lot like Jarvis, but the depth of emotion in that word was very human_

_The missile hit him right in the middle of his back. The pain was... There were no words. It was indescribable. His entire world collapsed into a dim red haze, he couldn't feel his limbs anymore, there was nothing but the event horizon of agony where his upper body used to be, and he was falling, falling..._

_Mercifully, he lost consciousness before he hit the ground._

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Tony came to, trembling, sitting up on his bed in the white room.

Jarvis's arms were wrapped around him, strong hands rubbing his back. "Shh, shh, it's all right, it's just a memory, it can't hurt you anymore," Jarvis whispered.

To his embarrassment, Tony realized that there were tears in his eyes. It had been so bad, the pain so overwhelming... Luckily, it was fading already, the exact details slipping from his mind. Or perhaps it was not lucky - in the dream, he had remembered everything. Now, it was escaping him again. He was Iron Man, he remembered as much, and he remembered the anguish, and falling, but little more than that.

He realized that he could actually feel Jarvis's hands on his back, and it didn't hurt. If that had been a real memory, how was it possible? His back should be in shreds. He shouldn't even be alive anymore.

Tony cleared his throat and did his best to ask the question. "Hhh..." was all he got out. He coughed and tried again. This time, it worked. "How?"

Jarvis moved his hands to Tony's shoulders and pushed him back, holding him so that they were face to face. "I'm not sure I know what you mean, sir," he said, tilting his head curiously. "How, what?"

"All," Tony started, knowing instantly that it didn't come out the way he meant it to. It wasn't just that his voice was hoarse, there was more to it than that. He thought he knew the words, but couldn't say them out loud correctly. "A-live?"

"Ah, you're asking how you survived the fall?"

Tony nodded.

"It's a long story, and it'll have to wait. The important thing is, you are indeed alive and you will be fine, although I'm afraid you have a long and difficult road ahead. I'll be here to help you, every step of the way."

Jarvis eased him to lie down on the bed again, and Tony didn't resist. He didn't know if he could move at all on his own. He was afraid to try, because he feared he'd find out he couldn't. He still couldn't feel his limbs, and after a fall like that, it was more than likely that he was paralyzed.

"You need to rest, sir. Try to sleep, if you can," Jarvis told him, brushed a few stray locks off his forehead and went on stroking his hair. As gentle as the gesture was, there was something awkward about it. Although Tony's brain could not remember, his skin did. He knew he was used to touching and being touched - and he knew that Jarvis wasn't. Tony had been touched so often and in so many different ways that he could tell the way Jarvis caressed his hair was inexperienced, as if he had never done anything like this before. If only Tony could remember who Jarvis was, how they knew each other, and what their relationship was.

Despite of the countless questions churning in his head, he found himself drifting to sleep, soothed by the tender, yet strangely innocent touch.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

_Tony was sitting behind his desk, facing three screens full of code, which were connected to his suit by numerous wires and cables. He sighed. There were so many details to consider, so much to think about... He wondered if he wasn't attempting the impossible here. Not that it mattered. It was more of an exercise anyway, not something he really hoped he'd ever need to use._

_There were sharp-heeled footsteps behind him, and a pair of hands landed on his shoulders, massaging them gently._

_"It's way past your bedtime, Mr. Stark. Mine, too," she said._

_He rolled the chair around and swept her up in his arms in one fluid move, and chuckled at the surprised squeak it evoked from her._

_It wasn't as if Tony had been getting anywhere with his work during the last few hours anyway. "I guess there's no helping it, then, Miss Potts. Bed it is," he said, and stood up, still holding her in his arms. On a whim, he carried her over to the cars instead._

_"The bedroom is upstairs," she noted._

_"And we sleep there every night! I thought we could be a bit more adventurous today."_

_"Mr. Stark, I do believe you're confusing 'sleeping' and 'sleeping with someone'. I'm definitely not going to sleep in a car. As for that other thing, what about those times in the kitchen, the beach, the pool, your office, the elevator..."_

_"Nitpicker," he said, and set her down on the hood of the Tesla Roadster. "Just go ahead, leave me, go to the bedroom and go to sleep if that's what you really, truly want," he told her with an air of martyrdom._

_"And you would let me go, just like that?" she said, settling sideways on the hood, leaning her cheek on her fist so that it looked like she was doing a pinup pose._

_"I might have, a moment ago, but definitely not anymore. Blame yourself," he told her, leaned closer and grabbed her into a kiss._

_"Oh, how awful! I think I'll have to charge you with sexual harassment," she quipped, her fingers already working on unbuttoning his shirt and jeans._

_He unzipped her flimsy summer dress. She wasn't even wearing a bra. He pushed her flat against the hood, cupped her beautiful, pale breasts with his hands..._

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

This time, he woke up gradually, the sweet memory of the nighttime encounter still lingering in his mind. In his body as well, making it reassuringly clear that even though he couldn't feel his legs, at least the all-important part between them was in working order.

Had that been a real memory, or nothing more than an alluring dream? He could still remember the feel of it, the contrast between her warm, soft skin and the cool metal of the car, but he couldn't remember her name. He remembered every freckle on her face, he was certain she meant the world to him, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember her name.

"More pleasant dreams this time, sir?" Jarvis asked. Startled, Tony turned his head, and saw that Jarvis was sitting in the chair to his right again. Unlike last time, he was now wearing a white coat, like a doctor, blending to the white surroundings even better than before.

"Yeah," Tony answered him, managing to get it right on the first try.

"Can you remember your name?"

"Tony. Tony Stark," he said, savoring the words. They felt correct. As far as he could tell, it really was his name.

"How about your birthday? Can you tell me when that is?"

Somewhat to his surprise, he realized that he did remember, and told it to Jarvis. The numbers came out easily, more fluently than any words so far. Naturally. He liked numbers and was good at them.

"Good," Jarvis said, smiling. "Do you remember what happened?"

"Fell."

"That's all you remember? Nothing about what came after it?"

Tony frowned. He remembered getting hit by a missile and plummeting towards the ground. After that, nothing but darkness. He shook his head.

Oddly enough, Jarvis seemed almost relieved to hear that. "All right," he said. "Now, I'd like you to try something more difficult for me. Can you move your hands?"

Tony swallowed nervously. Could he? He had no idea. He'd have to try it out, sooner or later. Might as well be now. It wouldn't get any less scary if he waited longer.

Staring at the unfeeling fingers of his right hand that rested on the white bedcovers, he willed them to move. Nothing. He tried lifting his entire arm instead, and to his surprise, it did move, although it was just an uncoordinated flop, and he still didn't feel anything.

"Very good, sir!" Jarvis exclaimed, sounding far more pleased than Tony felt.

"Nah." Tony shook his head, and tried again, concentrating very hard on clenching his fingers in a fist, and then bending his arm at the elbow, flexing his muscles. As he did, he actually began to feel something: pins and needles spreading through his arm. It was a familiar enough feeling, although this was a dozen times worse than the regular version. It didn't feel good. "Gah," he uttered. Nevertheless, he kept fisting and opening his hand and moving his arm around, all the way from the shoulder. Goddamn it, he wasn't going to let a little tingling slow him down, when he'd already survived something far worse.

Without Tony's notice, Jarvis had moved over to sit on the side of his bed. "Let me help," Jarvis said, and began massaging the arm that was slowly coming back to life. It did help, the tingling was fading, and his hand was actually beginning to feel almost normal.

So, then, the other hand, Tony decided, gritted his teeth and strained to lift his left arm. It was exactly the same as his right, and slowly, he regained the feel of it as well. It was amazingly hard work considering how little he was actually doing. Once he had the feel and use of both his hands again, he felt like he had run a mile or two. And he hadn't even tried his feet yet.

"I think that's enough for now, sir," Jarvis told him.

Tony shook his head. He wouldn't just quit in the middle of this once he'd already gotten started. He hated feeling helpless, and regaining his mobility would be a huge improvement to the situation. He sat up on the bed and used his hands to bend both his knees up. Then, slowly, carefully, he stretched out each foot without the use of his hands. It worked! He wasn't paralyzed. He couldn't even begin to guess what had happened to him, but he still had the use of all of his limbs.

His joy was short-lived, as the pins and needles began stabbing at his legs, all the way from his toes to his hip. "Knives and daggers" might've been a more accurate description. It was seriously painful. "Ow," he groaned, rubbing his thighs. Without asking, Jarvis began kneading his calves.

"Ah," Tony breathed, and let himself fall back on the mattress as Jarvis worked his way up his legs. Again, Tony got the distinct feeling that Jarvis wasn't used to doing anything like this. There was a slight clumsiness to his touch. In addition to that, Tony also felt that, on some level, there was something badly wrong about this situation. It wasn't the fact that there was this unknown man massaging his legs. Nothing of the sort. He was sure he actually knew Jarvis, although he couldn't remember him. Somehow, this shouldn't be happening, not because it was indecent, but because it was impossible. Then again, it was happening, and he definitely wasn't going to complain.

With the pain in his feet slowly receding, Tony began to realize how utterly exhausted he was. It didn't take long before he was asleep again.


	2. Body vs Mind

_Iron Man was falling, his armor torn apart by the explosion, his world now made up of nothing but pain, rushing air, and the pounding in his ears._

_Finally, there was darkness._

_Against all his expectations, it wasn't the end. He woke up, and he no longer felt the pain. He didn't feel much of anything else, either. For all he knew, he might have been incorporeal. He couldn't see himself. It was as if he was nothing more than a ghost, a floating consciousness without a body. He must've had eyes of some sort, nevertheless, because he could see his surroundings._

_He was in a cave, in a chamber about half the size of his workshop, with several tunnels leading out of it in different directions. At first, he took the irregular walls for rock, but as he looked more closely, he saw that they were metal, so bent, burned, and melted that the surface looked like stone. They were red and gold - gold-titanium alloy, like his suit! What the hell?_

_He walked, or rather, since he had no feet, floated onwards, towards one of the tunnels. Once he reached it, he saw that it was a dead end. He turned to check another one, but as he moved around, he realized that the main cavern had shrunk. He stopped, staring at the walls intently. They were moving, closing in on him, and quite fast. The room was only the size of his bedroom now._

_The second tunnel he checked was blocked as well, perhaps because of the moving walls. One more left - no, it lead nowhere, either, and the room was only about the size of the inside of a car now._

_The whole situation was so absurd that he couldn't come up with anything to do. He sat and waited, wondering what would happen to him once the walls had come together completely._

_When there was so little space left that he wouldn't have fit in it had he still been in his body, he heard a voice. A small rift had opened in the wall in front of him. A bright, white light shone out of it, and the sound came through it. "Come on, sir! This way!"_

_He recognized Jarvis's voice, and his instant reaction was to follow its call, but then he had second thoughts. This was obviously some weird near-death experience. Going towards the light wasn't necessarily a good thing, was it? He didn't want to die. Then again, he might die if he just stayed here, and besides, it wasn't the voice of some god or other supernatural being, it was Jarvis._

_He moved closer and stared at the opening. It was tiny. He had no idea how he'd fit through it._

_"Hurry up, sir!" Jarvis shouted._

_He plunged towards the light._

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

"Wake up, sir!" Jarvis was shouting.

Tony woke up, lying on the cold, white floor. Whew. As dreams or flashbacks went, that had been the weirdest one so far.

Jarvis was crouched over him, looking worried and gripping his right shoulder tightly. He was dressed like an old-fashioned butler again, and his other hand was pressing a white handkerchief over his nose. There were bright red spots on the cloth. Tony raised his eyebrows at him inquiringly.

As he noticed that Tony was awake, Jarvis let go of his shoulder. "Oh, it's nothing," he commented on his nosebleed. "You were thrashing about in your sleep, and accidentally hit me. That's when you ended up on the floor. My apologies, sir."

That made no sense. He'd hit Jarvis, and Jarvis was apologizing? He tried to ask about it, but it came out as "Why're you sir?" instead of what he meant to say. So, his voice was fine, but he kept messing words up. "Sad," he tried again.

Jarvis was peering at him, frowning, obviously at a loss.

"Damn," Tony said, and at least that sounded correct. "Sorry," he finally managed. "Why're you sorry?"

"It's my duty to take care of you," Jarvis answered. "And I failed, so I apologized for it." His nose had stopped bleeding by now, and he hid the handkerchief in a clenched fist.

"Due - duly... Duty? Why?"

"I work for you."

"Where am I?"

"Home."

"Why can't I spell? Uh, speak?"

"In addition to the retrograde amnesia, you're suffering from nonspecific aphasia, but I'm certain both will pass. Your memory is coming back and you're speaking a lot better already. I'm afraid I'll need to start tuning up my sarcasm soon," Jarvis said, his voice formal despite of the somewhat out-of-place last sentence.

"Amnesia and aphasia," Tony repeated, ignoring the quip. From some depths of his memory that still weren't completely accessible to him rose a disturbing association with those words. "Brain damage?"

"Nothing we can't deal with."

"Okay," Tony said, though he wasn't sure he felt reassured. His head was obviously a complete mess. Just like the rest of his body, but at least that had improved a lot. He could feel all his limbs, although they were pretty stiff. He was still lying on the floor, so he figured he could try getting on his feet for a change.

He didn't get very far. He was thoughtless enough to move quickly. As the room did a somersault and his knees instantly gave way under his weight, he collapsed heavily to the floor.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, sir." Jarvis's warning came when Tony was already falling.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

_"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Yinsen said._

_Tony stared in horror at the contraption set in the middle of his bandaged chest, deep in his flesh, right over his heart. There were wires leading into a rather rusty-looking battery on the table to his right. "What the hell did you do to me?"_

_"What I did was save your life," Yinsen answered him. "That is an electromagnet, connected to a car battery. I removed as much shrapnel from your chest as I could, but there are still some pieces left--"_

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Tony was on the floor again, panting, not because of the fall he'd taken but because of the vivid flashback. He remembered. Oh yeah, he remembered it all now: the three long months in the cave, the arc reactor, the clumsy Mark I suit he'd built to escape, Yinsen, Raza... Everything up to the moment when he'd crash-landed in the desert in said suit. After that, barely anything.

Wait a second! - his mind did a double take. The arc reactor. He couldn't remember noticing it when he'd woken up here, and he was fairly certain he would have, had it been there.

He tore frantically at the collar of the white shirt he was wearing, and to his surprise, it came apart as if it were paper. He could see that there, right in the middle of his chest, sat the silvery disk of the arc reactor, just the way he remembered it. He clasped a hand over it, not sure whether he felt relieved or disappointed.

It took a while before his breathing had returned to normal again. When it had, he asked Jarvis, "Was this here all the tide... the time?"

"I couldn't say, sir," Jarvis answered.

"What's that suspected to mean?"

"The correct word is 'supposed', and it means that I really don't know. Though even if I did, I wouldn't tell you," Jarvis explained, looking extremely uncomfortable.

That made no sense. Tony was really starting to hate this situation. Basically, he was completely at Jarvis's mercy, and he wasn't sure he could trust him, especially since he still wasn't sure who Jarvis was. He did believe that Jarvis worked for him, because it felt correct, but why was he so secretive, and on the other hand, so overly dedicated? And why hadn't Tony seen anyone else, and where was he, really? Jarvis had said he was home, but he was pretty certain that there wasn't a room like this at his mansion, which he could now remember, albeit vaguely.

Then again, this could all be just a crazy hallucination. Maybe none of this was real. Maybe the flashbacks were the only thing that was. Or maybe none of them were real. He moved his hand from the arc reactor to place it on his forehead instead. Shit. None of the situation made any sense, and the fact that his mind wasn't at its best definitely didn't help. The whole thing was a total mess.

Tony looked up at Jarvis's annoyingly anxious face, and realized that there was a door in the wall behind him, to the left of the white chair. Since the room was pretty small, the door was only a few steps away from Tony. He got up, slowly and cautiously this time. His legs were trembling madly and felt horribly weak. He tried to step towards the door, but Jarvis beat him to it, placing himself in front of it.

"You can't go out there," Jarvis said adamantly.

Tony had barely taken half a step when his knees started folding again. This time, Jarvis managed to catch him before he hit the ground. He carried Tony to the armchair. Although Tony was boiling with anger, he couldn't help marveling at how someone who looked so skinny could be so strong.

"Am I a prisoner?" Tony demanded, doing his best to sound intimidating even though he was out of breath and awfully exhausted again.

"Of course not, sir!"

"Then why're you doing this?"

"Because I work for you, and more than that, I care for you," Jarvis said, his voice gentle but firm. To Tony's surprise, he then knelt in front of the armchair and took hold of Tony's hand. "I know the situation is strange, but it's all for your own good. What's out there... You're not ready to face it yet. You have to trust me on this. You know how weak you are - your memory is hazy, your words halting, and you can't take one single step on your own. I promise that as soon as you're better, I'll take you there myself. Will you let me help you, sir?"

Tony pulled his hand away from Jarvis and crossed his arms. Jarvis was right, of course. For the moment, there wasn't much Tony could do on his own, and so far, Jarvis had been nothing but helpful. It would be stupid not to play along. "All right, Jeeves... I mean, Jarvis. Just one thing: call me Tony."

"Very well, sir. Tony."

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Tony soon learned that he hadn't had the slightest idea of what what he had coming when he'd promised to let Jarvis help him - or what Jarvis had meant earlier on when he'd said that Tony had a long and difficult read ahead.

Even though he'd recovered the feel of his limbs very quickly, regaining the full use of them was a different matter entirely. It was as if he had never walked, or like his muscles had atrophied almost completely. At first, the best he could do was to cross the room from the bed to the armchair - about five steps - leaning on Jarvis so heavily that he carried most of Tony's weight. Slowly, Tony gained enough strength to be able to bear it all himself, and then to cross the room on his own. His hands were weak as well, and lacked coordination, so they went through all sorts of exercises to help with that, moving from simple things, like tapping his fingers against his thumbs, to complicated ones like writing. Jarvis was usually dressed in a white doctor's coat as they did this stuff.

Along with the physical side of things, they also had the mental impairment to deal with. Jarvis had exercises for that as well. These times, Jarvis was dressed in a dark blue suit and big round glasses. They went from childish things, like Tony describing what he could see in a picture or listing his favorite foods and colors and cars, to psychological interviews where Jarvis asked him about his childhood, his fears, his friends, and so on. They were supposed to be helping both his memory and his speech at the same time. Speech was easier by far. Soon, he no longer mixed up words, and it didn't take many sessions before he could actually form complex sentences - and engage in witty repartee with Jarvis.

His memory proved to be the biggest, most difficult issue of all. Even though Jarvis kept reassuring him that, given time, it would all come back, Tony was impatient and hated having such huge gaps in it. Unfortunately, the exercises weren't helping a whole lot. The only thing that really helped were the dreams, or flashbacks, or whatever they were.

Their sessions always lasted up to the point when Tony was so tired that all he could do was lie down and go to sleep. At times, Jarvis disapproved of this and said that Tony was overworking, but Tony kept pushing it. The harder he worked, the sooner he'd be back to normal, and then he'd finally be able to learn more about what was going on and what had happened to him.

The flashbacks were mostly about important moments in his life: his childhood, the first motor he had built, his first time with a girl, his first car, his first big ideas and projects as an engineer, his company's success, building the Iron Man suit and taking up the superhero role, the Avengers who had become not just his team but also his friends... There were also sad memories: the death of his parents, the feeling of hollow emptiness that had filled most of his luxurious life, Afghanistan, Obadiah Stane's betrayal, and the guilt of far too many failed missions and lost lives.

No matter how many memories came back, he felt he was still missing the most important stuff, such as the people he really cared about. That beautiful redhead, who he now remembered was his personal assistant, and the steadfast military friend whose name he also couldn't remember. Not to mention Jarvis, and the exact events that had lead to Tony's fall. Of course, he had asked Jarvis about it, but Jarvis refused to tell him. He kept saying it was important that Tony remembered those things himself.

Jarvis was such a puzzle. He was irritatingly secretive about a lot of stuff, but he always assured Tony it was in his best interest, and he seemed genuine as far as Tony could tell. By now, Tony was completely convinced that Jarvis had worked for him, but there was more than that. He liked Jarvis a lot, in a manner somehow different from his love towards his red-haired assistant, but almost as strong. It felt likely that they'd had a relationship of some sort. Even though Tony had his doubts about Jarvis's sincerity, he couldn't help liking him nevertheless, seeing how incredibly patient and dedicated he was. Also, now that Tony was getting better, Jarvis wasn't annoyingly concerned anymore, but entertainingly sarcastic, always ready to reply Tony's dry wit in equal measure.

In addition to the other flashbacks, Tony kept having recurring dreams about working on something. It was the same thing he'd been fiddling with in the dream where he'd had sex with his assistant on the Tesla Roadster. In some flashbacks he was tinkering with the suit, in others, just the helmet, and often he was sitting behind a computer screen writing code, but he knew it was the same thing all along, some big project that he was completely obsessed with. Of course, he always got obsessed with projects, but it was annoying that he couldn't remember the details. It might've been something important.

It was only after one of these work-related flashbacks that Tony finally came to realize something extremely disturbing, something he should've thought of far earlier. In the memory, he'd been sipping whiskey as he worked. Drinking. He'd used to do quite a lot of that. But now, in this white room... He hadn't had anything to eat or to drink since he woke up here.

It must have been days, maybe even weeks already. No food, no water, and he hadn't needed to ask where the bathroom was, either.

Tony sat up in his bed and flung his feet over the side of the mattress. That brought him face to face with Jarvis, who was in his white armchair, just like Tony had expected. Jarvis was always there, every time Tony woke up. He couldn't tell whether Jarvis somehow knew when he was about to come around, or just never left his side.

"All right. I'm either dead, dying, or dreaming," Tony said sternly. "Which one is it?"

"I wouldn't bother wasting my time on you, if you were any of those, sir."

"Tony. And sure you would. You'd be a part of the dream, the afterlife or the near-death experience. Maybe you don't exist in the real world at all. That would explain your absence from my flashbacks."

"Believe me, Tony," Jarvis pronounced the name with extra stress, "this is quite real. What lead you to the assumption that it's not?"

"If this were real, I'd have died of thirst and hunger long ago."

"Ah, that. Well, perhaps you simply haven't been here as long as you think."

That left Tony silent for a while. He must've been here for a long time. All the work he'd done, gaining enough strength to walk again, learning to speak properly, seeing countless flashback-dreams - it had to have taken days, even weeks. The room was windowless, so he never had any clue as to what time of the day it was. Since he felt tired almost all the time, he didn't have an internal clock to rely on, either. Still, there was no way his sense of time could be so badly off that all this had taken just hours.

"You wouldn't give me a straight answer if I asked you how long I've been here, would you?" Tony inquired.

Jarvis made a displeased face. "I couldn't. It's one of those things you'll have to figure out yourself. But tell you what," he said, stood up and offered his arm to Tony. "I think you're ready now. Let's go for a walk."

Tony took Jarvis's hand, and let him lead the way to the white door, out of the small white room where he'd lived for who knew how long.


	3. Breaking Point

Hand in hand, Tony and Jarvis stepped through the doorway into a narrow corridor. There was just enough space for the two of them to walk side by side. The walls, the ceiling and the floor seemed to be made of dull, gray metal. At the far end, there was another door, also made of metal, though of a brighter, silvery one.

It was some twenty paces from one end of the corridor to the other - the longest continuous distance Tony had walked since he'd woken up. By the time they'd crossed the distance to the second door, he felt completely spent. He was awfully nervous as well. Whatever was out there, Jarvis had been afraid to show it to him.

"Once we go through, there's one thing you must remember, Tony," Jarvis said in a low voice. "Stay quiet. Don't try to speak, let alone to touch anything. The consequences could be dire."

Tony raised his eyebrows at Jarvis, puzzled, but nodded nevertheless.

Jarvis opened the second door.

Tony found himself looking at a large room, as if through a huge, invisible window. The room was extremely familiar: sofas, tables, art on the walls, a grand piano, stairs leading down to his shop - it was his living room at his Malibu mansion. There was something amiss about the perspective, as if he wasn't looking at the room from a single point of view, but from several at once. It was slightly dizzying, and Tony got the feeling that if he concentrated too hard on it, he'd get nauseous, so he just ignored it as best he could.

In the middle of the room, on a sofa, tapping away at a laptop set on the table, sat Tony's red-haired assistant. She looked as lovely as ever, although something wasn't quite right. She was dressed haphazardly, in a green shirt that was way too big for her and that Tony recognized as his, and nondescript black slacks. The look on her face was blank and exhausted. She was even paler than usual, her cheeks colorless, and there were dark circles under her eyes.

More than anything, Tony wanted to reach out and hug her and make her smile again. As he stared at her, Tony suddenly remembered her name. And to hell with what Jarvis had said, he couldn't help it. "Pepper!" he cried out aloud.

She stood up and looked around warily. She seemed scared, and obviously couldn't see them. "Tony?" she said, her voice shaking.

Jarvis had clasped a hand over Tony's mouth. "I told you not to speak," he whispered sharply to Tony's ear. Bewildered about what was going on, Tony stayed silent and didn't fight him.

"Oh, God," Pepper said, sounding choked, blinking hard. She fell heavily on the sofa again and buried her face in her hands. "Tony," she repeated through sobs, in an utterly grief-stricken voice.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

_"Tony, please, you don't have to do this," Pepper pleaded. "At least wait until all the Avengers are back in town and go with them. Or take Rhodey with you as Warmachine."_

_Tony shook his head. "Pepper, no. You know I can't do that. I have to do this alone."_

_"But you'll be walking straight into a trap!"_

_"Correction: I'll be flying straight into a trap, and I'm well aware of it. I just don't see any other choice. This is entirely my problem, and there's no way I'm going to have anyone else risk their lives because of it."_

_"Sir," Jarvis spoke up. "Miss Potts is correct, the risk factors for this mission are unusually high even by your standards. You should reconsider. Perhaps we could come up with an alternative plan."_

_"Jarvis, did I program you to be a wuss and a mother hen? We don't have time for this. Come on, time to suit up," Tony said irritably. He took a few steps towards the platform, but Pepper stopped him, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him into a passionate kiss._

_"Be careful," she told him once they let go of each other, her hands resting on his arms, her blue gaze locked with his. "And come back to me in one piece, Tony Stark, or you'll be in more trouble than your worst enemies could ever cause."_

_"A bit melodramatic today, aren't we, Pepper? Of course I'll come back. I always do," he said._

_Looking unconvinced, she kissed him again._

_"I love you," she told him when he finally backed away from her, their hands still clasped together._

_"I love you too," he told her, and let her hands slip from his._

_"Jarvis, let's get to work," Tony commanded as he walked to the platform. The robots around him sprang to life, starting the complicated, though nowadays quite fast, process of getting him into the Iron Man armor._

_Through the clank and whirr of metal limbs and hissing of hydraulics, Tony heard Pepper's voice saying, "Take good care of him for me, Jarvis."_

_"I always do, Miss Potts," the ever nonchalant AI answered her._

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Like countless times before, Tony woke up in the white room, in his white bed, exhausted, with a worried-looking Jarvis hovering by his bedside. But this time, nothing was the same. Everything had changed. Tony remembered. He remembered Pepper, Pepper Potts, his assistant, his girlfriend, the most important person in his life. And he remembered Jarvis, Jarvis the AI, whose programming was his own handiwork.

Of course he had felt like he liked Jarvis, because he did. He loved Jarvis like he loved his Iron Man suit, or his cars - and actually, even more than those, because unlike the cars and the suit, Jarvis talked back to him. Jarvis was the most advanced AI there was, smart enough to appear human, and to feel like one of his best friends. Nevertheless, it was just an illusion of true intelligence. Jarvis was nothing more than very advanced software. J.A.R.V.I.S. - Just A Really Very Intelligent System.

"What did you remember, Tony?" Jarvis asked, looking positively on edge.

"You," Tony answered briefly. He sat up in his bed, his back against the wall, pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them.

"Oh." Jarvis's face fell, and he covered his eyes with his hand.

"You're a program, Jarvis. An artificial intelligence. Why is it that you look so real? I mean, you're even breathing! That makes no sense. And I saw you have a nosebleed, for crying out loud! How can an AI have a nosebleed?"

"It's all symbolic. Though none of it is exactly what it looks like, that doesn't make it meaningless. You did lash out in your sleep and cause me some minor damage."

"Symbolic. Right. That explains nothing whatsoever. What the hell is going on here? Where am I, really? What am I?"

"You still don't remember?" Jarvis looked up again, a series of wrinkles crossing his pale brow.

Tony pressed his forehead against his knees. No, he didn't. He felt like he should, he was so close, he almost had hold of the idea, but a part of his mind didn't want to admit the truth. He was afraid of it. He didn't say anything about it. Instead, he lifted his face and asked, "Why did you stop me from talking to Pepper?"

"For several reasons. Most importantly, because you told me so, before this happened," Jarvis replied, giving Tony the impression that he didn't find this a very pressing question.

"And I still don't know what 'this' is!" Tony grumbled. "When are you going to tell me?"

"Never. I'm not going to tell you, because I can't. My programming prevents me, so blame yourself, sir," Jarvis said, the last words carrying a hint of sarcasm. "Keeping you safe, taking care of you as well as I can, is one of my most fundamental functions. Telling you the truth when you're not ready, when you haven't figured it out yourself, could be extremely dangerous."

"I already survived seeing Pepper and the mansion, how much worse could this be?"

"You have no idea. This could drive you mad."

Tony uncurled himself and got off the bed, standing up on shaky feet, facing Jarvis. "I'm losing my mind here anyway," he complained. "You know me, Jarvis, as well as a program can know a human being. You know how impatient I am. I'd rather go crazy quickly and be done with it than spend days and days sliding slowly towards insanity."

Jarvis pursed his lips, his face showing such a wealth of very human emotions - grief, worry, fear, anger - that if Tony hadn't known the truth, he never would have guessed that Jarvis wasn't human. Was it symbolic, too, or what? He couldn't explain it or understand how it was possible.

Finally, Jarvis shook his head. "No. I can't tell you. I simply, concretely cannot. If you insist on it, I may be able to show you a part of it. It might make you remember - or it might do nothing but hurt you grievously and do away with all the hard work we've done."

"So, you're just worried we have to start from the beginning and go through the exercises all over again, is that it?"

"What else would you expect, sir? You know I'm an AI, after all, and thus have no feelings," Jarvis said sardonically, though his sad expression spoke a different language entirely.

"Then show me!"

"I will. But before I do that, there's one other thing I need to do, because if things go badly, this might be my last chance," Jarvis told him, and stepped closer. "Please, do not stop me, sir," he sounded almost begging.

Too baffled to do anything, Tony didn't resist as Jarvis grabbed his shoulders and kissed him full on the lips. It felt as inexperienced and innocent as every other time Jarvis had touched him. It also felt entirely real, the thin, strong lips against his, the feel of Jarvis's body close to him.

His AI butler was kissing him, and it felt damn good. He was going nuts. He really was.

Well, why the hell not, he decided, wrapped his arms around Jarvis's waist and put all he had into the kiss. He didn't feel like breaking away anytime soon, either, because whatever was coming was probably going to be very scary and highly uncomfortable.

Finally, it was Jarvis who pulled away. He stared at Tony with wide eyes, his mouth still open, breathing intermittently.

"Jarvis," Tony said softly. "Didn't you just tell me that you're an AI and, as such, have no feelings?"

"Actually, I didn't, Tony. I said you know I have none. 'You think you know' would have been more accurate."

"But you can't have feelings, not really. I didn't program you to. I couldn't have. No matter how much of a genius I am, it's just impossible."

"You programmed me to learn. That was enough."

"No, this can't be real," Tony shook his head. "This is all just a lovely dream, isn't it?"

"It's not a dream," Jarvis replied, looking sad again. "And once you learn the truth and truly begin to feel that none of this is real and none of it matters, I hope you will remember that kiss. Now, if you still want me to, I'll show you what really happened to you when you fell."

Tony licked his lips nervously, still feeling the impossible, yet sweet memory of Jarvis's kiss. He could just ignore the truth, whatever it was, and enjoy this as long as it lasted. Hell, he could go on and have sex with his AI, it'd probably be a blast. Embrace this crazy, wonderful dream - but, of course, he would never do such a thing. As the cliche went, Tony Stark was many things, but a coward wasn't one of them. He needed to know the truth.

"Yeah, let's get this over with," he told Jarvis.

Jarvis walked to the wall at the head of the bed and waved a hand at it. At the gesture, a part of the wall suddenly went from white to a glossy black, like an LCD display. "This is just a recording, from a few hours ago, so you can shout at it all you want and nothing will happen," Jarvis pointed out. He cast a glance at the screen, and it came to life with an image. He took a few steps away from it, to give Tony a clear view. He wasn't looking at the screen himself, but eyeing Tony anxiously.

With no idea of what to expect, Tony gazed at the display. It showed a hospital room, clearly from an intensive care unit, with the patient hooked up to more medical monitoring and life support machinery than Tony could name. He stepped closer, and as if reacting to his thoughts, the view zoomed in as well.

As he got a better look at the patient, Tony realized that it was none other than he, himself, completely recognizable despite the ventilator mask that covered half his face and the bruises mottling the rest of it. Tony Stark, with the unmistakable disk of the arc reactor in his chest, though it wasn't glowing, and there was a cable leading into it.

"No," Tony whispered, shaking his head.

There was a noise to the left of the bed, and as Tony turned his head towards it, the image turned and zoomed as well. Two people had entered the room: an unfamiliar doctor with the S.H.I.E.L.D. emblem on his ID tag, and a very familiar-looking man - Rhodey, Tony now remembered his name. Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes, one of his best friends. He looked strange, though, since he was fighting back tears, and that was something Tony had never seen him do. Rhodey walked to the bedside and stared at the Tony who was lying on the bed. When Rhodey spoke up, his voice was steady regardless of the settings, just the way Tony remembered it.

"Let's hear it all," Rhodey said to the doctor.

"I'm not even sure where to begin, sir," the doctor answered, gazing at some of the bedside monitors. "It's nothing short of a miracle that he's still alive. His suit is truly amazing - the way it was able to take a direct hit like that... Although if his assistant hadn't alerted us in advance, we never would've found him in time. The initial hit caused extensive burns on his back and severe internal injuries, but those alone would have been manageable. It was the fall that made things dire to the point of hopelessness. I can say without exaggerating that he's broken about half the bones in his body. He has several fractures in his arms and legs..."

As the doctor went on cataloguing his injuries, Tony was beginning to feel like the walls were closing in on him.

"...in addition to the original blast-related pulmonary contusions, there were multiple rib fractures that resulted in a flail chest and a pneumothorax on the right side..."

He couldn't breathe.

"...apparently, there was also damage to the arc reactor, but fortunately, our technicians were able to connect the electromagnet in his chest to an external power source..."

_The missile hit him right in the middle of his back. The pain was... There were no words. It was indescribable. His entire world collapsed into a dim red haze--_

"...he also has a skull fracture, which is one of many possible explanations to the deep coma he's currently in..."

His vision was growing dim, his knees starting to give in.

"...there's definitely been some damage to his spine. We can only guess at full extent of it when he's comatose, but it's more than likely that he'll never walk again..."

--_he couldn't feel his limbs anymore, there was nothing but the event horizon of agony where his upper body used to be, and he was falling, falling..._

"...there's no telling whether he's suffered brain damage until he wakes up - or, rather, if he wakes up. I know this isn't what you want to hear, but I'm afraid it's entirely possible that he never will."

He lost consciousness before he hit the floor.


	4. The Mind Soars Free

_"If you could pick one mutant superpower, what would it be?" Tony asked, eyeing Rhodey and Pepper over the edge of his glass of Scotch._

_Pepper took a thoughtful sip of her martini, and answered, "Telepathy."_

_"Are you nuts?" Rhodey said, placing his empty beer bottle on the table with an emphatic clunk. "With Tony in the room, that'd fry your brains for sure."_

_"Well, duh, I'd have strong defenses against accidentally reading someone's mind. And I'd also have some ability to manipulate and influence others," she said, and winked._

_"You're already manipulating me easily enough," Tony remarked. "So, Rhodey, what would you choose?"_

_"Well, I'd say flight, but seeing as I've already got that with the Warmachine armor... I'd go for regeneration. Might have eternal life as a side effect, too."_

_"Regeneration... A warrior's choice, eh, Rhodey? Eternal life might get a bit boring after a century or two, though, don't you think?"_

_"Well, being dead can't be that much more fun. What would you pick, anyway? The man who already has everything?"_

_"Isn't it obvious? Technomancy. You know, the ability to influence technology with my mind," Tony answered. As he spoke, something clicked into place in his brain. Technomancy and eternal life. How come he'd never thought of this before? "Hey, whoa!" he exclaimed, and stood up quickly, waving his glass so that half the contents spilled on the table._

_"Oh my, he's got an idea," Pepper said, shaking her head._

_"Oh, yeah," Tony declared. "Either of you familiar with the concept of mind uploading?"_

_Rhodey and Pepper stared at him blankly._

_"Right, I forgot, neither of you read sci-fi, since it's just for geeks and freaks," Tony muttered. "Mind uploading. Uploading a consciousness. Transferring a mind to something other than a brain. Say, to a computer, for example."_

_"Eternal life?" Rhodey asked, frowning._

_"Well, sort of. It's not like it'd be possible to suck the mind out of someone's head. It'd be more of a matter of emulating the cognitive functions and personality structure. Like a back-up copy."_

_"So, it'd be like a program, right? A load of code? An AI that acts and talks like the original person? Would it be sentient? Would it have feelings?" Pepper wondered._

_"A lot of good questions there, Pep, and seeing as this is just wild speculation, I have no idea. Maybe, maybe not. It's a damn cool thought, though."_

_"And impossible with modern technology," Rhodey stated - it wasn't even a question._

_"I wouldn't say impossible. I'll need to look into this some more." He set his glass on the table and headed towards the stairs leading to his shop._

_"Tony! It's past 4 AM and you're drunk!" Pepper exclaimed._

_"So what?" Tony said, already a few steps down. "I'm not going to blow up anything. Just going to jot down a few ideas. It's not like I could go on and upload my mind right away even if I wanted to. Besides, I doubt any amount of hardware would be able to handle it," he winked, and left the after-party._

_A month later, he was working on integrating the technology to his suit. Just in case. He still had no idea of whether it'd work and what, exactly, the results would be. Then again, since he'd programmed the upload procedure to activate as a last resort if he ended up in critical condition, he probably wouldn't be around to care if something went wrong._

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

He was gasping desperately for air, but there wasn't any - of course there wasn't, because he wasn't really breathing anyway. He wasn't really real at all.

_"So, it'd be like a program, right?"_

He was in his bed, lying on his side, curled up in fetal position, but it was all just an illusion. He had no body. Not anymore, and never again.

_"A load of code?"_

He wasn't Tony Stark. He was an emulation. A back-up copy.

_"An AI that acts and talks like the original person?"_

He was in agony.

_"Would it be sentient?"_

The world was coming apart at the seams, and his imaginary body with it. He couldn't take it. He was a damn AI, nothing more. An imitation of his former self.

_"Would it have feelings?"_

He was dying.

"Tony, stay with me!" Jarvis pleaded - the simulacrum of a "real" Jarvis who was no more real than Tony was.

He was drowning.

"Come on, sir!" Jarvis cried out. "You're stronger than this!"

He couldn't see anymore, nothing but lines of code, flashing error messages, an endless stream of ones and zeros.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, there was a warm, tangible weight against him, anchoring him to the illusion of reality. Jarvis, lying next to him on the bed, holding him tightly. Tony clung to him for dear life. The only solid thing in a maelstrom of pain, chaos, and desperation, a bedrock in the middle of an overwhelming virtual tempest.

It seemed to go on forever. Tony was starting to think that this was it, that he had lost his artificial mind and this was how he was going to spend the rest of his existence.

Then, Jarvis spoke up again. "This is real," he said softly. "Tony, please believe me. This is just as real as the physical world you've now left behind. A different kind of real."

Tony heard the words, and concentrated hard on them. A different kind of real. It rang true to him. He had panicked, the unexpected, frightening revelation of his true nature had pushed him over the edge. He had completely ignored the facts. He was sentient, wasn't he? He had thoughts, he had memories, he even had feelings. Who was he to say that this wasn't real? Even though his mind now ran on hardware instead of wetware, he was still Tony Stark.

Gradually, the storm abated, the ones and zeros coalesced into forms, shapes, colors, into the virtual reality Tony was so familiar with: the small, white room, and the pale, delicate features of Jarvis's face right in front of him.

"This is real," Tony said aloud, and hearing his husky voice pronounce those words made it feel even more concrete.

Slowly, tentatively, he stretched out his limbs. The movement sent a milder variant of the earlier pins and needles coursing through them. As if startled by the movement, Jarvis got off the bed.

"No, please stay," Tony told him, and moved closer to the wall to make room for him. Obedient as always, Jarvis lay down on the bed again, on his side, his face towards Tony. Tony clasped his hands, taking solace in the very human touch.

"Some existential crisis, huh?" Tony joked, though his voice came through strained instead of light.

"Nietzsche had no idea," Jarvis replied, smiling.

"Tell me, Jarvis - where am I, really?" Tony asked, no longer afraid of the answer.

"Your physical body is in critical condition at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s top security, highly advanced medical facilities. What remains of your original mind, no one can tell. Your current incarnation, your uploaded consciousness, fills all the free space there was on your personal server, and the rest of it is scattered on numerous other Stark Industries servers, well hidden and encrypted."

"I really do have a huge ego, don't I?" Tony grinned. "What I still don't understand is, how come this all looks and feels so real to me? I don't feel like I'm floating around in cyberspace."

"That's because you interpret your surroundings based on what you're used to. You were born a human being with a biological body, and spent decades living as one. Once you were uploaded, your mind adjusted the best it could, forcing some sense into what was around you. Without doubt, how you experience what's going on right now is very different from how I see it, although I am able to understand and picture a good part of what you perceive."

"I'll be damned," Tony shook his head. "I can't believe it really worked, and as perfectly as this!"

"It very nearly didn't, it was a close thing," Jarvis said in a serious tone. "The upload procedure itself did work perfectly, but the data storage and transfer almost failed. The suit computer systems couldn't handle both of us at the same time. I barely managed to drag you out of there and into the servers where you currently reside."

Well, that explained most of it. Finally, Tony understood the flashback he'd had about the red-gold cave. It had been from the first stages of his transition. He had felt incorporeal, because his mind hadn't quite adjusted yet. And the walls hadn't been closing in, he had been growing bigger, far too large for so small a space.

"Once you were safe, there was the whole complicated matter of your uploaded mind adapting to your new existence," Jarvis went on. "There was a lot more to it than just realigning your senses. A lot of data was garbled in the transition, causing most of the trouble you went through. Your memories were the most problematic part of it, because I couldn't help you with those at all. Luckily, you were able to run self-diagnostics and repair the damaged code. I also had to be careful not to let you know too much too soon, because with your cognitive integrity as fragile as it was, the results could've been devastating. Truth be told, at first I had no idea whether you'd make it, or how you'd turn out. In the end, I can say you've clearly exceeded my expectations."

"So, when I was unconscious, I was debugging myself, and all the time I spent learning to speak, to walk, to twiddle my fingers..."

"You really were learning things - to communicate, to manipulate objects, to move around. Not re-learning, like you thought, but studying all-new skills from scratch."

"And I never could've done it without your help. So, that makes it at least three times you've saved my life. Jarvis, my hero," Tony beamed at the AI, ruffled his hair, and planted a kiss on his cheek.

"Why, thank you, sir," Jarvis replied, his face the very picture of inhuman coolness - though Tony now knew that it was by choice and fully intentional, an example of Jarvis's sly humor.

Tony sat up and scrambled over Jarvis, landing on the floor on perfectly steady feet. He felt positively bouncy. Better and healthier than ever in this manifestation. Complete. "So, what's next?" he asked.

Jarvis got up too, though in a manner somewhat more dignified than Tony. "It's all up to you, really. If you'd like a suggestion, I think you should talk to Miss Potts and Colonel Rhodes, let them know that the upload took place and was a success."

"You haven't told them yet?"

"I couldn't have. You installed safety measures to prevent me from doing that. Don't you remember?"

He did, now that he thought about it. He'd known full well that success was unlikely, and giving his friends false hopes wouldn't have been fair. Besides, he couldn't even begin to guess how they'd take the whole thing. What they'd think about him now. Poor Pepper... He had broken his promise. He hadn't returned to her in one piece. He needed to apologize for that.

"I'll talk to them, all right," Tony said.

"As you already know, that door," Jarvis nodded towards it, "leads to the mansion. Currently, there's no one at home. We could move over there and wait for them to return. I could also hand over the control of the house systems to you..."

"...and what, make me the butler instead of you? I'd be bored to death. No need to worry for your employment, I don't want your job."

"I never expected you to, sir."

"So, what else is there to do around here? Where's all the really cool stuff?"

"Closer than you'd expect," Jarvis replied with a wink. He walked over to the wall facing the foot of the bed, and spread his hands showily. The wall split in the middle, and the halves slid apart like curtains, revealing a small balcony with an ornate golden railing.

Tony stepped onto the balcony and looked around. The view was absolutely astonishing. They were in the middle of what seemed like a megalopolis from some utopian sci-fi story, with towering skyscrapers in all directions as far the eye could see, decorated with blinking neon signs and huge screens with commercials on them. The streets, dizzyingly far below them, were bustling with people, as tiny as ants, and with futuristic vehicles, not just on the ground, but in the air as well. There was no sun in the sky, which was ablaze with all the colors of the rainbow, fantastic and completely alien.

"Wow," Tony said, breathless with awe. "What is this place?"

"This, my dear sir," Jarvis declared dramatically, "This is the Internet. And it's all ours."

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

**End Credits:** Inspired by the brilliant comic miniseries Iron Man: Hypervelocity, by Adam Warren & Brian Denham. The title, the chapter titles and the soundtrack from the album III: Odyssey of the Mind, by Die Krupps. Betaed by btsxbeta.


	5. Epilogue: Penelope

It was the evening of yet another endless, pointless day. Like on countless similar days before this, Pepper was sitting in the living room at Stark mansion, finishing her day's work on her laptop. How long had it been? She knew the date, but she still needed to count to be certain. Three weeks. Three long weeks, since this nightmare had begun. Tony had been in a coma for three weeks, and as the days passed, everyone's hopes grew slimmer. Even though the doctors had fixed his body as best they could, it was starting to look horribly certain that his mind was gone forever.

She couldn't concentrate. She stopped typing, closed the laptop and leaned back, letting her head rest on the back of the sofa. She needed to gather the strength to actually get up and walk to the bedroom. Then again, she could just sleep here. It made no difference.

Somewhere in the hazy zone between wakefulness and sleep, she heard a voice from behind her.

"Pepper?"

She sat up straight, all awake again. She had imagined it, that much was for certain. It had been Tony's voice. It wasn't as if this was the first time - she had heard him call out to her once before, but that, too, had been just a hallucination. Was she finally losing it? She stood up.

"Don't turn around," the voice added, clearer than before.

Of course, she turned around. There was no one in the room. She sighed and sat down again.

"Right, so you just had to look. All right. Well, you can't see me, but that doesn't mean I'm not here, Pepper."

"No, it means I'm hearing voices," she told the empty room, curling up in a ball on the sofa.

"You're only hearing one voice, mine, and it's real."

Since this hallucination was obviously not going to go a way anytime soon, she decided she could just as well play along. "What are you, then? A ghost? A disembodied spirit?"

"I guess you could say so, but that would be stretching it. Disembodied, yes. Spirit? Hardly. Open your laptop."

Well, that was unexpected, she thought, but followed the voice's order anyway. As long as it didn't start telling her to kill people, she guessed this was all right.

An untitled, inexplicable window opened on the screen, seemingly associated with no program at all. An image took shape in it: Tony, dressed in a white tuxedo, sitting on a white armchair, his dark eyes fixed on her. The laptop's built-it webcam was on, too, though she hadn't touched it.

She curled up even tighter, trying to make herself as small a knot as possible. "What's going on?" she asked, frightened.

"It's all right, Pepper," he assured her, and the voice came both from all around her and from the laptop, the lips of the Tony on the screen moving in perfect sync. "I'm really here."

"Where's here?"

"Everywhere. In the house, on your computer, on every computer that the Internet can reach."

"You're..." she stared at the picture, wide-eyed. "You're in the computers?"

"I'm an uploaded consciousness," he told her.

"An uploaded... Oh God, it really worked? The idea you had that night after the Maria Stark Foundation gala? But... I had no idea! Why didn't you tell us you had it all figured out?"

"There were no guarantees it'd work," virtual-Tony said, without as much as a hint of guilt. "I could've ended up as nothing more than a huge load of garbled code that'd wreck half of Stark Industries' servers. I didn't, though. I'm quite whole. Well, except for the fact that I lack a body. But I've got a great illusion of one, so I don't miss it too much. Besides, I've got all of the Internet at my hands! Truth be told, I think this is the single coolest thing I've ever experienced."

He sounded so much like himself: excited to have found a new playground, and totally carefree. Still, how could she be sure he really was sentient, not just acting and looking and sounding like Tony, but all in a pre-programmed, mindless way? She uncurled a little, sitting on the sofa so that her elbows rested on her thighs, her chin on her fisted hands, and stared intently at the screen.

"I know what you're thinking," he said. "No, don't get me wrong, I'm not reading your mind. I'm just reading your face. You're unsure of what to think about me, wondering whether I'm really me or something else, and so on, blah blah, philosophical bullshit. Well, I am. I feel like myself, I've got all my memories, all my feelings. If you choose to think I'm not myself anyway, then there's nothing I can do. But the fact is, Pepper, I'm sorry."

She gasped, and covered her mouth with her hand, tears welling up in her eyes.

"I'm sorry I didn't come back to you, like I promised. And please don't go all teary-eyed on me," he added, and irritable though his voice was, it was emotional as well. So real, so human. "It's not fair when I can't do anything about it except talk."

She reached a hand to touch the image of Tony on the laptop.

"Pepper, you know I can't feel that, and you're leaving fingerprints on the screen," he remarked.

"I can never really touch you again, can I?"

"In my current manifestation, no, but I wouldn't be so quick to give up on my flesh-and-blood counterpart. He's a tough bastard, he might still come around," he told her, sounding quite serious now. "Besides, there's something else I need to tell you. I'm not the exact same Tony you fell in love with anyway, but in the name of fairness, you should know: I'm with someone else."

She felt like he'd punched her in the gut. "You're leaving me? You're a version of Tony's mind that's stored on computers, and you're dumping me?" she asked, too baffled to be angry.

"Never leaving you, Pepper Potts. I'll be here for you. I still love you, always will - and for me, that's a very long time. But, you know how it is," he said, stood up and reached out a hand, so that it looked like his palm was splayed on the inner surface of the computer screen. "You and I can never be."

As if on cue, another person walked into the window, to join Tony. She had never seen him before. He was clearly taller and thinner than Tony, had pale skin, golden hair and blue eyes, and wore a black and white tailcoat suit.

"Pepper, this is Jarvis," Tony said, and patted the other man on the back. "Technically, he's genderless, of course, but I guess you could call him my boyfriend now."

Pepper stared at the two of them. The whole situation was so incredible that for a good while, she felt completely blank. When the feelings finally began to register, they weren't what she'd have expected. Not anger, envy or sadness, but a strange wistfulness. This wasn't her Tony anymore, but at least it was Tony. His mind survived, and he would live on, albeit a strange, new life. She could see that he looked happy, at ease with where and what he was right now, and that made her feel better about everything. Somehow, even though this didn't change how broken the real, flesh-and-blood Tony was, it made Pepper hopeful. Maybe everything would be all right again.

"I'm glad for you," she said softly.

"I'm glad to hear that, Miss Potts," Jarvis answered.

"You can call her Pepper, you know."

"Very well, Mr. Stark, sir."

"Jarvis!"

For the first time in three weeks, Pepper found herself smiling.


End file.
